Roger Brooks, President and CEO, Facing History and Ourselves
George Washington, First President of the United States
I have heard from many members of the Facing History and Ourselves community about current events. President Trump’s recent executive orders around immigration from Mexico and limiting refugees from seven Muslim countries have raised serious discussions in the judiciary, in the press, and in communities across the country.
Many of us have been involved in or followed these conversations closely. A critical point of contention is that the proposals would limit immigration based on just one aspect of human identity: nationality, religion, or ethnicity. We have been through this before.
At Facing History, we study history because its lessons are valuable for navigating the present. For example, in the weeks leading up to President Trump’s inauguration some supporters of Muslim immigration bans turned to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II as a suitable precedent for many of these actions. Fear, fueled by prejudice, was used to justify the removal of tens of thousands of Japanese Americans and their parents (who themselves were ineligible for citizenship) from their homes into internment camps. The argument those supporters offered in favor of the immigration ban: FDR could do it then, why can't we do it now?
But that argument alone isn’t sufficient, and sober reflection on recent judicial rulings staying the executive orders highlights the importance of the Supreme Court.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer, for instance, has written of Korematsu v. The United States, the Supreme Court decision that allowed the internment camps: “The decision has been so thoroughly discredited that it is hard to conceive of any future court referring to it favorably or relying on it.” Justice Antonin Scalia had agreed, before his passing; he linked the decision to the shameful Dred Scott decision allowing slavery.
Perhaps as the court, including Justice Scalia’s successor, considers banning people based on single identity traits, a better, older precedent may be found in a national “mission statement” that will be familiar to all of us:
“The Government of the United States... gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”
Our first president, George Washington, wrote these words in 1790 in response to an address from the leader of the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island. The congregation needed this reassurance. At the time, Washington and everyone else knew that the new states built out of British colonies were not free from religious intolerance but too often filled with it. Jews, Baptists, Quakers, Catholics and Mennonites, among others, wondered about their status in this new country; in the colonies, religious dissenters had been banished or even executed. Many of the 13 original colonies had restrictions on voting: Catholics were barred from voting in five colonies. Jews were banned from voting in four. Even after the American Revolution, many states excluded Catholics, Jews, Quakers, and others from civic participation on the basis of religious differences.
So Washington issued his aspirational call to action to allay fear in the face of prejudice and xenophobia. And despite Washington’s own participation in the slave trade—which meant that he could not fully live up to his own words—his underlying message still resonates.
As a nation, we need to stand up and distinguish between our reactions to fear, and the sense of unity and nationhood that hearkens back to the very founding of our country. Even when emotions run at their highest—as we are seeing today—Washington’s letter, and the warning of Justices Breyer and Scalia, must remind us of our own best instincts as a nation.
Our staff and the teachers they work with are on the front lines of these issues, leading the complex conversations that are at the heart of a thriving democracy. Facing History's core values of human dignity and building a community of full participation must guide all of us. I feel confident that all of our commitments will have impact in schools and beyond. I believe, as always, as renowned educator Freeman Hrabowski says, that we "really will change the world."
Renowned educator, scholar, and leader Roger Brooks is President and CEO of Facing History and Ourselves. He joined Facing History in late 2014, following a long and distinguished tenure at Connecticut College as the Elie Wiesel Professor in the Department of Religious Studies (1991-2014). He also served as Associate Dean of the Faculty (2003-2007), and Dean of the Faculty and Chief Academic Officer (2007-2014). He was named Elie Wiesel Professor Emeritus of Judaic Studies at the College in 2015.